10 Aug 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia’s oil giant, Aramco, yesterday said its net profits for the second quarter of this year had dropped by 73.4 per cent, resulting from a global decline in crude oil prices.
The state-owned company said in a statement that its profits had declined by 50 per cent in the first quarter of the year, to $23.2 billion compared to $46.9 billion during the previous year.
Aramco’s CEO, Amin Nasser, told reporters that profits were affected by the “current unfavourable conditions resulting from the decline in crude demand and prices.”
“The COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything the world has experienced in recent history and we are adapting to a highly complex and rapidly changing business environment,” Nasser said, noting that he was seeing a “partial recovery in the energy market as countries around the world take steps to ease restrictions and reboot their economies.”